1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to wireless data communication between different computer devices, and in particular, to a docking system and method for automatically configuring an optimal network topology and device driver settings for the network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless docking employs wireless technologies to connect typically portable devices, such as mobile phones, laptops, to typically stationary docking environments. Such portable devices are typically referred to as a dockee or wireless dockee (WD). In wireless docking, the dockee connects wirelessly to a docking environment, which can be one or more docking stations (WDS) or docking hosts (WDH) in order to gain access to the peripherals in the docking environment, such as a large screen, keyboard, mouse and input/output ports provided by the docking environment. In a typical application, a mobile phone user is provided with a capability to use a larger screen than what is provided on the mobile phone when interacting with an application (e.g., e-mail client, web browser) running on the mobile phone. The use of a larger screen improves the experience and productivity of the end user when interacting with applications running on the dockee.
Current and future envisioned wireless docking standards under development envision that a docking environment can be implemented in a distributed way, consisting of several devices and communication links.
Given the afore-mentioned limitations and considerations, it is clear that the process of setting up optimal connections in a docking system, referred to herein as connection negotiation, involves at the very least, combining communication protocols, chip settings, channel assignments and routing topologies in a manner which balances the needs and capabilities for all parties participating in the docking process. Moreover, assessing the different possible solutions on their merits can be a difficult task on its own. Ideally, there are several metrics that should be optimized. They are, network topology throughput and latency with particular reference to the throughput of screen updates sent to and from a dockee to a screen peripheral function.
In light of the above drawbacks and concerns, it should be apparent that a dockee proposing to dock with a wireless docking environment is presented with the immediate problem of how to perform a connection negotiation process that combines communication protocols, chip settings, channel assignments and routing topologies in a manner which balances the needs and capabilities for all parties participating in the docking process. As discussed above, the problem is not trivial, as the choice of certain settings in one part of the system influence the performance in another part of the system. Even finding a single combination of settings that creates a fully connected communication graph can be complex in some setups.
Therefore, what are needed are systems, methods and computer program products for providing a connection planning strategy that implements a connection negotiation process to connect wireless dockees to a wireless docking environment.